TY - JOUR AU - Ishak, K. Jack AU - Stolar, Marilyn AU - Hu, Ming-yi AU - Alvarez, Piedad AU - Wang, Yamei AU - Getsios, Denis AU - Williams, Gregory C. PY - 2012 DA - 2012/12/01 TI - Accounting for the relationship between per diem cost and LOS when estimating hospitalization costs JO - BMC Health Services Research SP - 439 VL - 12 IS - 1 AB - Hospitalization costs in clinical trials are typically derived by multiplying the length of stay (LOS) by an average per-diem (PD) cost from external sources. This assumes that PD costs are independent of LOS. Resource utilization in early days of the stay is usually more intense, however, and thus, the PD cost for a short hospitalization may be higher than for longer stays. The shape of this relationship is unlikely to be linear, as PD costs would be expected to gradually plateau. This paper describes how to model the relationship between PD cost and LOS using flexible statistical modelling techniques. SN - 1472-6963 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-12-439 DO - 10.1186/1472-6963-12-439 ID - Ishak2012 ER -